Re: Dazed and confused

He's not talking about building a replica and going on to selling it. He's merely talking about building a replica for yourself. If that's against the law, then fuck the law and if that's against your morals, then fuck your morals. Definitely not against mine.

Re: deaf law makers

If you read the actual article, you'll see that there is a sound rationale behind the system, which switches off automatically after the car reaches 12 mph, when the sound of the tires is deemed loud enough to serve as warning. While I regard this sound to be pretty useful, I'm of the opinion that engine noise is more of an annoyance than it is worth at high speeds.

However, I dread the idea of an advent customizable "car-tones" for people to broadcast their "individuality" to unsuspecting bystanders. I'd rather have a lorry roaring at my side than some moron pumping some Jay-Z at me because he finds it cool. People need to keep their fucking music inside their cars, not outside.

Re:

Re: Re: Re: you know...

It's part of it, sure, but not the whole issue.

A great deal of it is the fact that, the way things work, money calls money. As long as you don't get stupid, the more money you have, the easier you can make more money. Heck, given enough money, you can live a decent life merely off the interest.

Re: Logical my arse.

Forced disconnection would hurt people on so many levels that it's ridiculous how anyone could think is a fair punishment for something as harmless as file-sharing. And that's not even counting the huge potential for abuse and misuse.

How much was Mandelson bribed for during these vacations? (which were obviously fully sponsored by the industry, make no mistake)

Educating the industry

"I fear that only the market will educate the industry..."

And there he said it. The industry can only be educated by the market and surely it is already getting some tough lessons from it, only it's mainly the BLACK one (i.e. filesharing) which should take the credit for it. Do you really think that if everyone only ever did the legal thing the industry would EVER get educated?

This reminds me...

This story just reminds me of the Sarah Connor's Chronicles episode I saw yesterday.

The treatment the burglars received from badass Cameron in the end might have been a bit harsh, but after seeing what a jerk this guy was, one can't help to wish that they had tried this on Sarah Connor's house :P

Re: Child porn sites

Bah! Don't be silly.

While I do think that Google probably has some mechanism of dealing with child porn, I wouldn't attribute the complete lack of it on Google hits to this filtering at all. There are ways of preventing your stuff from appearing on Google, and I guarantee you that child pornographers DO NOT want to be found so easily.

Run-of-mill porn, however, is a LOT more plentiful and it has no qualms about being found (at least not by adults). Filtering that deluge is a lot more difficult.

By the way, the anti-porn sensibilities are clearly not those of the Chinese. Just those of their repressive, controlling, totalitarian government.

Re: Re: Well, it's time to unite...

What if you like an artist who got tangled by the RIAA's tentacles and still want to support them?

Personally, I'd suggest to download for free, but go to their gigs (or if you can't just buy a ticket online and give it away or something) and purchase their merchandise. (AFAIK) the RIAA doesn't get a cut from that. THAT's sticking it to the man.

Re:

Mos Def is a hip-hop artist, so his primary demographic is actually expected to be rather young (read: T-shirt wearing) people. Hint 2 fulfilled.

I also see the cover itself is rather tasteful, so teens won't avoid it lest schools and parents get outraged (although sometimes that's exactly what they want to do). Hint 1 also fulfilled.

I agree that bundling music with T-shirts would very likely not work for, say, classical music, where the primary demographic (middle-aged to old people) probably won't wear T-shirts at all. That said, I would personally love a T-shirt about J.S. Bach, and I'm in my mid twenties.

Re: Re: Re:

You really don't get it, do you?

Many people actually do want the T-shirt in addition to the music. The music you can easily download off the internet, the T-shirt you can't.

Discs, on the contrary, usually have very little purpose other than being a medium for the music. Nice artwork can help, but that can be scanned and transferred too. Surprisingly, even then, a few people do like to buy them for collecting's sake alone. (There's something cool about having racks and racks full of CDs)

People who like the music are more likely to want the T-shirt too. The T-shirt has extra value because of the music (which I expect many people will try out first anyway). It's a pretty good idea, and I expect significantly more sales than if the album were just traditionally released.

Ah, the poll.

It's a bit ironic that on the same page from the original link they have the poll titled:

"Despite fears about the economy, the concert business seems poised for strong business this summer. Are economic concerns curbing the number of concerts you plan to see this summer season?"

The results so far:
15% - No, I'm seeing more shows than I typically see:
36% - I'm planning on attending roughly the same number of concerts this summer.
49% - Yes, I've been hit by the recession and won't be going to as many.